The present invention relates to a visor torque control.
There exist numerous visor torque controls which are designed to allow a visor to pivot from a stored position adjacent a vehicle headliner to selected lowered use positions. The design of such torque controls require that the visor be relatively easily lowered to selected use positions and yet maintain their adjusted position during movement of the vehicle. Some torque controls for visors also provide detent positions for locking the visor in a raised stored position and/or a primary lowered use position. An example of one such torque control which has been in widespread commercial use is represented by U.S. Pat. No. 4,500,131.
Visors frequently include a variety of accessories, such as illuminated vanity mirrors, and in recent years, trainable garage door opening transmitters, cellular telephones and the like. Such accessories integrated into visor bodies add to the weight of the visor making the torque control more difficult to design and successfully hold a visor in a desired adjusted position and yet allow ease of use.
Wraparound torque controls have been proposed for relatively simple visor designs in which the entire length of a visor surrounds a fixed rod as disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 1,862,432. Such construction, although functional for the early vintage vehicle visors described therein, is not applicable to modem visor construction. Also, proposals have suggested using a wraparound-type torque control in connection with a polymeric sleeve between the control and the visor rod. French Patent No. 2 407 836 suggests such a structure. One difficulty with a relatively thick polymeric sleeve, however, is that, with use of heavier accessory-laden visors, the sleeve material tends to deform or "creep", thus, loosening the interface between the visor and the pivot rod. Further, the sleeve adds an element of additional cost to the torque control.
There exists a need, therefore, for a visor torque control which is relatively inexpensive and yet meets the design criteria necessary for modem visor designs. Further, with the increasing sensitivity of the cost of vehicle components by manufacturers, it is desirable to have a visor torque control which is relatively inexpensive and requires less tooling and material costs.